Riyad Harun

This game is amazing in some ways and atrocious in others. My biggest complaints are almost the same issue; the devs saturated this game in detail, so much so that it's off putting. Character progression is ridiculous, the stats and skill tree are bloated for such an off brand, non-MMO. Too much time has to be spent plotting out character progress and learning mechanics. The story is another big issue. Aside from it being a sequel, there's too much going on. The best example is with character creation and racial origin, you not only pick a sub race but also a sub ethnicity, which would be fine if they didn't overly detail the backgrounds. It's more of an example at the overall issue of the game than a single complaint. Too many gods, cultures, history, events, people, and locations to keep track of that I stop paying attention because I stop caring. Even the dialogue at times drags on with an excess of detail. It's a creative game with a deep attention to detail, but it can become boring and slow paced at times. This is the LOTR of isometric RPGs, it would be a lot more exciting if they had generalized things and stuck to basic fantasy concepts; keep it simple, don't reinvent the wheel. EDIT: also, the sequel aspect wouldn't be an issue if the detail issue didn't exist, but I feel like I have to finish PoE1 to understand or care about what's going on in PoE2, which I'd do if PoE1 was a better game. It's risky to basically put the entirety of PoE2's success on the back of PoE1, not everyone liked or played PoE1. Would make a huge difference they made PoE1 free.